8 over THE EDGE-Friday November 4, 1994

LOOKING FORWARD TO FRANKENSTEIN

by Damien Joly.

Francis Ford Coppola has teamed up with the present day master of Shakespearean film, Kenneth Branagh, to bring to the screen Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. due out in early November,

represents the marriage of-

my two favourite filmmakers. Having seen Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula (in its entirety!!!) seven or eight times, I am really excited about the upcoming Frankenstein. This column in is anticipation of what I hope to be a cinematographic masterpiece. Bram Dracula is a

Stoker's brilliant

adaptation of the original novel. Not many movies are better than the books they are based on, but this one definitely is. embryonic

Take an feminist

MUSIC NIGHT -

This film,

movement, mix in some upper class W.A.S.P.'s svho are still firm subscribers to the "White Man's Burden," and you have a society that will create Dracula.

Stoker's novel is. really a - metaphor for rampant female sexuality and the horrors it brings upon society. "There was a deliberate voluptuousness which was both thrilling and repulsive, and as she arched her neck she actually licked her lips like an animal..." The protagonist Johnathon Harker's diary shows how he both lusted after and feared the strong, sexually aggressive female, a duality typical then and now. However, since this sexuality is beyond male control, it is condemned.

Coppola takes this

formula and twists it into a morally palatable _ film. There is the same group of impotent males. who try to stamp out evil and save their

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women from rolling around in throes of bliss and ecstasy.

However, there is a difference.

The first “victim,” Lucy (Sadie Frost), is

comfortable in her sexuality, and does not subscribe to the Victorian edict of prudence and modesty. Mina (Winona Ryder) keeps a copy of the Kama Sutra handy. Dracula

Stoker’s novel is really a metaphor for rampant female sexuality and the horrors it brings upon society.

(Gary Oldman) is not just a bloodsucking, Sesame Street type villain, but a charming yet horrible vampire. The movie is as much a love story as it is a horror story, with all the cheese that it entails. One severe problem is Keanu Reeves. I'll leave it at that. The romance between Dracula and Mina is

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undying, completely opposite to Stoker's original intention.

The animosity between Dracula and the Church is underscored by the way Coppola brings shots of Harker (Keanu Reeves) and Mina's marriage together with the earthly demise of Lucy. He draws an analogy between the symbolic cannibalism of the Catholic Church (the Blood of Christ we drink at Communion...) and Dracula's source of immortality ("The blood is the life..") The final minutes of the film allows redemption for Dracula. His lost love consummated in his forsaken chapel.

You can't watch this film and not be mesmerized by how the shadows take on a life of their own. Each scene is woven beautifully into the ext, so that the transition from a severed head to a roast beef seems perfectly logical. Amazing.

Kenneth Branagh's

masterpiece is the screen adaptation of the Shakespeare's Henry V, which he both directed and starred in. This view will draw major criticism, but it almost seems as if good ol’ Bill wrote this play with Branagh in mind for the lead role.

Dead Again is a more mainstream production by Branagh. Creepy flashbacks are interspersed with a twisted plot that is delighting. Robin Williams makes an appearance as a

burned out psychologist. Emma Thompson is incredible, and Branagh,

himself, convincingly plays two different characters. Watch for a take on Salvador Dali's Persistence of Time.

Knowing Coppola's track record and Branagh's acting genius, I predict four droppings for Mary

Shelley's Frankenstein, and if I'm wrong, my e-mail is joly@ugrad.unbe.edu.